UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT  LOS  ANGELES 


ROLF  HOFFMANN 


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6- 

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7 


FAREWELL  TO  AMERICA 


HENRY  W.  NEVINSON 


Farewell  to  America 


NEWVORK        THE  VIKING  PRESS         MCMXXVI 


COPYRIGHT,     1922.     BY 
B.     W.      HUEBSCH,    INC. 


PRINTED      IN      U.  S.   A. 

Second  printing,  May,  1923 

Third  printing,  January,  1924 

Fourth  printing,  April,  1925 

fifth  printing,  November,  1926 


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«+•* 

53 


This  appeared  originally  in 
The  Nation  and  The  Athenaum 

of  London 

and  is  reprinted  with  revisions 
by  the  author. 

E 


N4/f 


158170 


FAREWELL  TO  AMERICA 

IN  mist  and  driving  snow  the  tow- 
ers of  New  York  fade  from  view. 
The  great  ship  slides  down  the  river. 
Already  the  dark,  broad  seas  gloom 
before  her.  Good-bye,  most  beau- 
tiful of  modern  cities !  Good-bye 
to  glimmering  spires  and  lighted 
bastions,  dreamlike  as  the  castles 
and  cathedrals  of  a  romantic  vision 
though  mainly  devoted  to  commerce 
and  finance !  Good-bye  to  thin  films 
of  white  steam  that  issue  from  cen- 
tral furnaces  and  flit  in  dissolving 
wreaths  around  those  precipitous 
heights!  Good-bye  to  heaven-piled 
offices,  so  clean,  so  warm,  where 
lovely  stenographers,  with  silk  stock- 
ings and  powdered  faces,  sit  leisurely 
at  work  or  converse  in  charming 


ease !  Good-bye,  New  York !  I  am 
going  home.  I  am  going  to  an  an- 
cient city  of  mean  and  mouldering 
streets,  of  ignoble  coverts  for  man- 
kind, extended  monotonously  over 
many  miles;  of  grimy  smoke  clinging 
closer  than  a  blanket;  of  smudgy 
typists  who  know  something  of  pow- 
der but  little  of  silk,  and  less  of  leis- 
ure and  charming  ease.  Good-bye, 
New  York!  I  am  going  home. 


GOOD-BYE  to  beautiful  "apart- 
ments" and  "homes"  !  Good-bye  to 
windows  looking  far  over  the  city  as 
from  a  mountain  peak!  Good-bye 
to  central  heating  and  radiators,  fit 
symbols  of  the  hearts  they  warm! 
Good-bye  to  frequent  and  well- 
appointed  bath-rooms,  the  glory  of 
America's  art!  Good-bye  to  sub- 
urban gardens  running  into  each 
other  without  hedge  or  fence  to  sep- 
arate friend  from  friend  or  enemy 
from  enemy!  Good-bye  to  shady 
verandahs  where  rocking  chairs  stand 
ranged  in  rows,  ready  for  reading  the 
voluminous  Sunday  papers  and  the 
"Saturday  Evening  Post" !  Good- 
bye, America !  I  am  going  home. 
I  am  going  to  a  land  where  every 
man's  house  is  his  prison — a  land  of 
open  fires  and  chilly  rooms  and  fro- 
zen water-pipes,  of  washing-stands 
and  slop-pails,  and  one  bath  per 
household  at  the  most;  a  land  of 
fences  and  hedges  and  walls,  where 

[3] 


people  sit  aloof,  and  see  no  reason 
to  make  themselves  seasick  by  rock- 
ing upon  shore.  Good-bye,  Amer- 
ica! I  am  going  home. 


[4] 


GOOD-BYE  to  the  copious  meals — 
the  early  grape-fruit,  the  "cereals," 
the  eggs  broken  in  a  glass!  Good- 
bye to  oysters,  large  and  small,  to 
celery  and  olives  beside  the  soup,  to 
"sea  food,"  to  sublimated  viands,  to 
bleeding  duck,  to  the  salad  course,  to 
the  "individual  pie"  or  the  thick 
wedge  of  apple  pie,  to  the  invariable 
slab  of  ice-cream,  to  the  coffee,  also 
bland  with  cream,  to  iced  water  and 
home-brewed  alcohol  I  ^1  am  going 
to  the  land  of  joints  and  roots  and 
solid  pudding;  the  land  of  ham-and- 
eggs  and  violent  tea;  the  land  where 
oysters  are  good  for  suicides  alone, 
and  where  cream  is  seldom  seen;  the 
land  where  mustard  grows  and  whis- 
ky flows.  Good-bye,  America!  I 
am  going  home. 


[5] 


GOOD-BYE  to  the  long  stream  of 
motors — "limousines"  or  "flivvers"! 
Good-bye  to  the  signal  lights  upon 
Fifth  Avenue,  gold,  crimson,  and 
green;  the  sudden  halt  when  the 
green  light  shines,  as  though  at  the 
magic  word  an  enchanted  princess 
had  fallen  asleep;  the  hurried  rush 
for  the  leisurely  lunch  at  noon,  the 
deliberate  appearance  of  hustle  and 
bustle  in  business,  however  little  is 
accomplished,  the  Jews,  innumerable 
as  the  Red  Sea  sand!  Good-bye  to 
outside  staircases  for  escape  from 
fire!  Good-bye  to  scrappy  suburbs 
littered  with  rubbish  of  old  boards, 
tin  pails,  empty  cans,  and  boots! 
Good-bye  to  standardized  villages 
and  small  towns,  alike  in  litter,  in 
ropes  of  electric  wires  along  the 
streets,  in  clanking  "trolleys,"  in 
chapels,  stores,  railway  stations, 
Main  Streets,  and  isolated  wooden 
houses  flung  at  random  over  the 
country-side.  Good-bye  to  miles  of 

[6] 


advertisement  imploring  me  in  ten- 
foot  letters  to  eat  somebody's  cod 
fish  ("No  Bones!"),  or  smoke  some- 
body's cigarettes  ("They  Satisfy!") 
or  sleep  with  innocence  in  the  "Fault- 
less Nightgown"!  Good-bye  to  the 
long  trains  where  one  smokes  in  a 
lavatory,  and  sleeps  at  night  upon  a 
shelf  screened  with  heavy  green  cur- 
tains and  heated  with  stifling  air, 
while  over  your  head  or  under  your 
back  a  baby  yells  and  the  mother 
tosses  moaning,  until  at  last  you  reach 
your  "stopping-off  place,"  and  a  semi- 
negro  sweeps  you  down  with  a  little 
broom,  as  in  a  supreme  rite  of  unc- 
tion !  Good-bye  to  the  house  that  is 
labelled  "One  Hundred  Years  Old," 
for  the  amazement  of  mortality! 
Good-bye  to  thin  woods,  and  fields 
enclosed  with  casual  pales,  old  hoops, 
and  lengths  of  wire!  I  am  going 
to  a  land  of  the  policeman's  finger, 
where  the  horse  and  the  bicycle  still 
drag  out  a  lingering  life;  a  land  of 


persistent  and  silent  toil;  a  land  of 
old  villages  and  towns  as  little  like 
each  other  as  one  woman  is  like  the 
next;  a  land  where  trains  are  short, 
and  one  seldom  sleeps  in  them,  for 
in  any  direction  within  a  day  they 
will  reach  a  sea;  a  land  of  vast  and 
ancient  trees,  of  houses  time-honored 
three  centuries  ago,  of  cathedrals 
that  have  been  growing  for  a  thou- 
sand years,  and  of  village  churches 
built  while  people  believed  in  God. 
Good-bye,  America!  I  am  going 
home. 


[8] 


GOOD-BYE  to  the  land  of  a  new 
language  in  growth,  of  split  infin- 
itives and  cross-bred  words;  the 
land  where  a  dinner-jacket  is  a  "Tux- 
edo," a  spittoon  a  "Cuspidor"; 
where  your  opinion  is  called  your 
"reaction,"  and  where  "vamp,"  in- 
stead of  meaning  an  improvised  ac- 
companiment to  a  song,  means  a 
dangerous  female !  Good-bye  to  the 
land  where  grotesque  exaggeration  is 
called  humor,  and  people  gape  in  be- 
wilderment at  irony,  as  a  bullock 
gapes  at  a  dog  straying  in  his  field! 
Good-bye  to  the  land  where  stran- 
gers say  "Glad  to  meet  you,  sir," 
and  really  seem  glad;  where  children 
incessantly  whine  and  wail  their  little 
desires,  and  never  grow  much  older; 
where  men  keep  their  trousers  up 
with  belts  that  run  through  loops, 
and  women  have  to  bathe  in  stock- 
ings. ,1  am  going  to  a  land  of  an- 
cient speech,  where  we  still  say 
"record"  and  "concord"  for  "recud" 
[9] 


and  "conoid";  where  "unnecessarily" 
and  "extraordinarily"  must  be  taken 
at  one  rush,  as  hedge-ditch-and-rail 
in  the  hunting  field;  where  we  do  not 
"commute"  or  "check"  or  "page," 
but  "take  a  season"  and  "register" 
and  "send  a  boy  round";  where  we 
never  say  we  are  glad  to  meet  a 
stranger,  and  seldom  are;  where 
humor  is  understatement,  and  irony 
is  our  habitual  resource  in  danger  or 
distress ;  where  children  are  told  they 
are  meant  to  be  seen  and  not  heard; 
where  it  is  "bad  form"  to  express 
emotion,  and  suspenders  are  a  strictly 
feminine  article  of  attire.  Good- 
bye, America!  I  am  going  home. 


[10] 


GOOD-BYE  to  the  multitudinous  pa- 
pers, indefinite  of  opinion,  crammed 
with  insignificant  news,  and  asking 
you  to  continue  a  first-page  article 
on  page  23  column  5 !  Good-bye  to 
the  weary  platitude,  accepted  as 
wisdom's  latest  revelation!  Good- 
bye to  the  docile  audiences  that  lap 
rhetoric  for  sustenance !  Good-bye 
to  politicians  contending  for  aim's 
more  practical  than  principles! 
Good-bye  to  Republicans  and  Dem- 
ocrats, distinguishable  only  by  mu- 
tual hatred!  Good-bye  to  the  land 
where  Liberals  are  thought  danger- 
ous, and  Radicals  show  red !  Where 
Mr.  Gompers  is  called  a  Socialist, 
and  Mr.  Asquith  would  seem  ad- 
vanced! A  land  too  large  for  con- 
centrated indignation;  a  land  where 
wealth  beyond  the  dreams  of  British 
profiteers  dwells,  dresses,  gorges,  and 
luxuriates,  emulated  and  unashamed ! 
I  am  going  to  a  land  of  politics  vio- 
lently divergent;  a  land  where  even 


Coalitions  cannot  coalesce;  where 
meetings  break  up  in  turbulent  dis- 
order, and  no  platitude  avails  to 
soothe  the  savage  breast;  a  land 
fierce  for  personal  freedom,  and  in- 
dignant with  rage  for  justice;  a  land 
where  wealth  is  taxed  out  of  sight, 
or  for  very  shame  strives  to  disguise 
its  luxury;  a  land  where  an  ancient 
order  of  feudal  families  is  passing 
away,  and  Labour  leaders  whom 
Wall  Street  would  shudder  at  are 
hailed  by  Lord  Chancellors  as 
the  very  fortifications  of  security. 
Good-bye,  America!  I  am  going 
home. 


[12] 


GOOD-BYE  to  prose  chopped  up  to 
look  like  verse !  Good-bye  to  the 
indiscriminating  appetite  which  gulps 
lectures  as  opiates,  and  "printed 
matter"  as  literature !  Good-bye  to 
the  wizards  and  witches  who  claim 
to  psycho-analyze  my  complexes,  in- 
hibitions, and  silly  dreams!  Good- 
bye to  the  exuberant  religious  or  fan- 
tastic beliefs  by  which  unsatisfied 
mankind  still  strives  desperately  to 
penetrate  beyond  the  flaming  bul- 
warks of  the  world!  Good-bye, 
Americans!  I  am  going  to  a  coun- 
try very  much  like  yours.  I  am 
going  to  your  spiritual  home. 
February,  1922. 


[13] 

15817O 


This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below 


'JAN  2 

MAR  i  «  tq^A 

\ 

OtC  1  1 


'JAN  4 


1934 


Form  L-9-35m-8,'28 


fle v ins on  - 
to  America 


UMVESSITY  of  CALIFORNIA 

AT 

LOS  ANGELES 
[JBRARY 


